More than just a silent comedian known for his pratfalls and clever mimicry, Buster Keaton was an unparalleled genius of the American cinema. This DVD presents three of his early works, displaying his extraordinary talents as actor and filmmaker alike.
Keaton stars in The Saphead as Bertie Van Alstyne, the spoiled son of a powerful Wall Street financier. Unable to escape the wealth and comfort that are foisted upon him, he pursues individuality in a series of comic misadventures in the speakeasies of New York, at the altar of matrimony, and even on the floor of the American stock exchange. The Saphead was instrumental in establishing Keaton as a bona fide star and greatly influenced his formulation of the Buster persona: a lonely, stone-faced soul thwarted by circumstance yet undauntedly resourceful and indefatigable in his struggle for love and survial within a chaotic world.
Also featured are two short films which Keaton not only acted in but wrote and directed (with his usual collaborator, Eddie Cline), and which exemplify the complexity and sublimity of his unique filmmaking style.
The High Sign (Dir. Buster Keaton, Eddie Cline. U.S. 1921. 21 mins. B&W.) finds Buster unwittingly involved in a radical secret society known as "The Blinking Buzzards," stumbling from assassin to bodyguard in a romantic adventure that climaxes in a mind-boggling romp through a booby-trapped mansion.
Dreams of placid domesticity are systematically satirized and ultimately demolished in One Week (Dir. Buster Keaton, Eddie Cline. U.S. 1921. 19 mins. B&W. Music by Gaylord Carter.), Keaton's bittersweet parable of one couple's unflagging determination to build a prefabricated honeymoon cottage.
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